Hi everyone,
I'm a newbie, and this is my first post. Since I visited the Pratteln tournament on its final day I might have some things to report that you can't read elsewhere. First thing is that it was an invitational tournament. Players that got invited (Europe's elite + Earl Strickland) had their expenses paid for.
About the Earl incident I know only second hand. He obviously insulted his opponents, the fans and the event managers quite badly. I don't know about the details.
The final day was magnificent. I walked into the room and saw Mika, Oliver Ortmann, Django and Ralf Souquet playing next to each other on the four center stage tables. It was the first tournament of that caliber that I visited, so I was feeling quite a bit star struck at first. After some time we found a spot right behind the table that Bustamante was playing on. Last 32, race to 11. His opponent was a young German guy named Heck, and he played one heck of a game (excuse the pun
). Django made a couple of uncharacteristic mistakes and suddenly found himself 10-8 behind with Heck, who had run some very composed racks earlier, to break for the match. Only then did he get nervous and missed some shots that he should have made. Django eventually took the match to hill-hill and nerved his way to a 11-10 victory.
A big surprise happened on an outside table, where Niels Feijen lost against a Swiss player who could be heard screaming "Ja!" several times (I wonder why).
Ortmann, Immonen and Souquet, as well as Chamat and Petroni on outside tables, more or less comfortably won. I witnessed some impressing and outright cruel safety play from Mika which frustrated his opponent to no end.
The match to watch in the next round certainly was Petroni vs Souquet. Unfortunately Petroni never quite found his game and couldn't capitalize on his chances. Bustamante cruised through his game against another Swiss player and (intentionally, I'm pretty sure) gifted him with a rack leading 10-3 or 10-4. Probably only he could make this gesture be in no way arrogant whatsoever. His last rack was played like an exhibition and finished with him banking the eight and simultaneously pocketing the nine with the cueball. Another big surprise happened again on an outside table where Marcus Chamat lost 10-11 against Fabio's travel partner Mauro Castriotta. (Marcus then went to the bar and showed up for some rather intoxicated (and intoxicating) trick shots after the final.)
The next round, the last 8, saw Ortmann leave the tournament when he lost against European Jr Champion Vilmos Földes who had a great day. I didn't watch the games though, but instead played on one of the outside tables against my mate. We're both relative beginners and were quite shocked to realize that Francisco Bustamante used his time out to smoke a cigarette and watch us play, if only for two minutes. Needless to say that we couldn't pot a ball.
The semis were worthy of a world championship: Immonen vs Földes and Souquet against Bustamante. Immonen and Földes were red hot. After they shared the first two racks, Földes went on to run six racks, leading 7-1. Immonen stepped up, and Földes hardly saw a ball until Immonen led 9-7. Földes then took another rack, but Immonen took his next chance to seal the 11-8 victory. He played the best pool I've ever seen live (which is probably not saying much, but it impressed me incredibly much)!
Souquet vs Bustamante was a nailbiter. Bustamante got off to a good start, but Souquet hung in there and - although he didn't get the rolls - managed to keep the match reasonably close. Bustamante led 10-8 when he gave Souquet another chance. Souquet ran the rack and the next, then aced the nine and calmly ran the final rack.
Apparently this took too much concentration out of Ralf. He could never get into the game against Mika, who continued to play virtually flawless pool and went on to win comfortably 11-4, pocketing 3000 Franken. Then he threw his towel into the crowd and I caught it.
He and other players such as Tom Storm, Chamat, Souquet and Bustamante then showed some trick shots to compensate for Earl's early departure (he had originally promised to show some of his repertoire).
Finally Mika and friends had time to pose for pictures and sign autographs (including the towel)
Here's a picture of Mika, Django and me musing about how much 1500 Franken is in Dollars. Does anybody know?
